ABSTRACT
An understanding of the site is essential for this project: over the building's footprint the terrain slopes rather steeply from an upper level garden and traditional building entrance down to a lower terrace about 7m (23ft) below that has multiple playing fields merging with the natural landscape. The new building, rather than being built at the top or bottom of this hill is instead built into it, resulting in a two-story structure whose rooftop meets the ground surface of the upper level. The landscape is then made to flow through the large new building in several ways: the entire flat rooftop is landscaped to act as an extension of the gardens, the two-story-high glass walls around the perimeter at the lower level allow the interior and exterior spaces to read as one, several exterior courtyards are integrated within the overall scheme, and, most relevant to our concern here, there are four distinctive g lass-covered pavilions, a Iternately that have been called "chambers" or "crystals," that project up through the green roof and give the building its most distinctive feature.
